Future Role of Multi-media Technology

Poetry-making and Policy-making

1. Multi-media environments

In the case of poetry, technological innovations have led only to some explorations of
computer generated poetry -- and to the use of wordprocessing with its advantages of
direct access to dictionaries, including rhyming dictionaries. Much poetry is now
available on CD, and this will soon be associated with visual information. Such a medium
will permit sophisticated explorations of text, whether or not it encourages
"better" poetry. Like it or not, a sign of the times is that priests can now
purchase a CD-ROM disk containing a large array of sermon texts, with related hymn and
liturgy proposals. By choosing a theme for the week, a busy priest can now have access to
a series of relevant proposals for his weekly duties.

Music has made much more extensive use of such technology, including aids to
experimental composition using libraries of sounds and melodies, combined according to
previously unforeseen rules. Music can also be combined with dynamic patterns of light in
usual ways. In this respect, colour and pattern manipulation has developed enormously with
the use of computers, notably with the possibility of selecting and controlling literally
thousands of colours.

The relevance of such technology to these arguments lie in its potential for holding
complex relationships between patterns whose parts may be selectively associated with
text, colour, shape and sound. Those in the computer world have not been reticent in
acclaiming the value of computers as tools of the imagination and for the exploration of
new patterns (Clifford A Pickover, 1990, 1991; Tom Graves, 1986)

2. Multiplicity of alternate representations

The interactive possibilities are important because of the potential for offering a
multiplicity of alternative representations of the same collective work. Just as a piece
of sculpture can be viewed from various angles under various lighting conditions, so too
can a complex pattern of relationships between elements of text be selectively perused.
This allows alternative aesthetic perspectives to be held together by relationships that
obviate the need for discordant experience. Or rather the level of discordance experienced
becomes a matter of choice and ability to integrate it.

3. Collective "composition"

It is possible therefore to envisage a group of poets, musicians and policy-makers,
such as that envisaged above, working together on the same information structure. Each may
then be "protected" from whatever degree of exposure to the
"incompatible" perspectives of others is considered excessive. The software
could allow them to "compose" together in unusual ways. Specifically it might:

(a) facilitate development of the underlying or fundamental pattern of the information
structure, from both aesthetic and functional perspectives. Subsequent revisions could
also be facilitated.

(b) provide a form of conceptual or aesthetic "scaffolding" to hold initial
possibilities in tentative relationship in anticipation of definitive arrangements (Judge,
1992)

(c) permit the addition of "annotations" to different parts of the information
structure. Like decorative artwork in a building, these could be made more or less
visible. They might take poetic form or they might be of purely functional significance --
or one might be linked directly to the other as an illustrative metaphor.

(d) permit experimental reconfiguration of the information structure to bring into
juxtaposition selected aesthetic and function features

4. Conceptual bridge-building through "morphing"

A related graphic technique of great interest is that of "morphing". This is
best known through the video-clips, seen by millions, showing the transformation of one
human face into a series of others, or possibly into some other form. This is a powerful
visual metaphor for what could result from establishing the stages in relating a turgid
policy text to one which embodies a pattern of aesthetic relationships of a much higher
order.

What might be involved in such a transformation of texts? Clearly the initial stages
would require the elimination of obscurantist legal jargon, and correspond to the
"rewriting" which is increasingly called for -- possibly leading to a form
acceptable for "public relations" purposes. But it is the subsequent stages
which are really of special interest. Are there ways of experimenting with such morphing
techniques to obtain computer assistance in building in aesthetic features? These might
lead to a variety of alternative presentations of the original document -- possibly with
associated graphics. The challenge would be to use the technology, as suggested above, so
that the "original" document did not have to derive from the policy side, but
rather from some intermediary stage of creative collaboration. The legalistic version
would then be but one of the alternative presentations.

5. Virtual reality

Perhaps of most significance is the potential of virtual reality technology. As yet in
its early crude development stage, the focus is on the display and interaction with
imaginary objects of little aesthetic or policy significance. However there is little to
prevent the substitution of patterns and relationships of a high order of aesthetic
complexity as a means of carrying information of functional significance to policy-makers.
There is every possibility that dialogue between poets, musicians and policy-makers may,
in the not too distant future, take place in virtual reality spaces. For example, the
possibility of virtual reality dance clubs is already envisaged. These would enable
physically isolated individuals to dance "together" in a simulated space
complete with audio-visual effects. Currently computer graphics are greatly independently
of the music and then merged, spliced and edited into synchronization. As compositional
tools become more advanced, visuals will become more intimately linked to sounds. Some
artists, including poets, will work simultaneously with voice, text, music, shapes and
colours.

6. Transformative moments enabled by computer

In the spirit of the metaphor of marrying Beauty and the Beast, the concern here should
also be contrasted with the creative processes of each in isolation. For this purpose
these might be pejoratively labelled as being characterized by "inbreeding",
whether or not this derives from "immaculate conception", "incest" or
a dubious programme of "eugenics". Having argued above that they are genetically
compatible, despite appearances, the concern here is to achieve a richer genetic mix in
the progeny.

Clearly any creative process precedes any possibility of definition. There is a
"circulation" of something in ways alluded to in the language of Taoist
alchemical texts. In the management world the closest is what is described as
brainstorming -- although ideas are different from actual creativity. There is some form
of "alternation" between opposing perspectives, again alluded to in Taoist
breathing metaphors. Perhaps the closest policy equivalent is that of dialectical
interaction through which perspectives are challenged and a new synthesis emerges.

More striking is the sense of a "magical moment" in which a wide variety of
elements are recognized as having a consonant relationship. In musical terms there are
resonances and harmonies which change the feel of the space in which they are perceived. A
version of this can be understood when considering internal decoration of a room and a
creative solution emerges. Such transformative moments also occasionally occur in
meetings.

Such moments can really only be described through metaphor. There is a need for poetic
skills to articulate understanding of such moments so that they are more readily
recognized and can exert a pull on collective endeavour in meetings. What is it that gets
"held" in such moments, and which the Taoists refer to as "chi"? (R G
H Siu, 1974) In the policy world there is a rather desperate effort to identify these
moments with "conflict resolution" and "reconciliation". But this
excludes qualities of integration in which tensions are not resolved but held in a very
dramatic manner well known to poets and dramatists -- hence the importance of pattern and
configuration. It is perhaps that dramatic truth which needs most to be
"harnessed" to collective policy-making.